This is the second installment of a two-part series designed to help your business become stronger, safer, and more competitive in 2025. As threats evolve, attack surfaces expand, and emerging technologies create new opportunities, SMBs can no longer rely on yesterday’s security playbook. Below are four more strategic check list items that your business can benefit from in the coming year.
Your business is driven by data, lots of it. While defending against breaches and ransomware is essential, external attacks aren't your only vulnerability. According to Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report, 68% of data breaches over the prior year involved a non-malicious human element rather than deliberate attacks. Leading causes include:
People are so accustomed to sharing freely on social media that they can become desensitized to what they disclose at work. A Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution helps counter this by identifying and blocking inappropriate sharing of sensitive company information before it leaves the organization. A cloud based DLP platform identifies, monitors, and protects sensitive data from unauthorized access, sharing, or exfiltration. It enforces policies, blocks risky actions, and prevents accidental or malicious leaks across endpoints, networks, and cloud services to help prevent data compromise and maintain compliance.
Many organizations still rely on VPN technology to connect remote users and partners, but traditional VPN solutions are more than 25 years old. If your VPN allows users to connect directly to your network with unrestricted lateral movement, you're operating with outdated security assumptions. The modernized VPN solutions of today are designed for hybrid work, SaaS, and zero trust, rather than just extended LAN over IPsec security. They can also include options such SOC monitoring, threat detection and SD-WAN integration.
IntegraONE partners with leading VPN and network security providers to assess your specific requirements and recommend solutions that properly coincide with your risk profile and operational needs. Beyond selection, we provide fully managed services to ensure your VPN infrastructure remains expertly configured, monitored, and optimized for 24/7 optimized security and performance throughout the coming year.
Many small businesses rely on a managed services provider (MSP) for network management, helpdesk support, endpoint management, and data backup and recovery.
Managed services don’t have to be an all-inclusive service proposition. Highly critical infrastructure such as firewalls often requires deeper expertise and ongoing training. Partnering with a specialized firewall managed services provider delivers advantages such as:
IntegraONE can tailor a Managed Firewall as a Service plan that that properly fits your business and can grow as your demands. This approach also gives you access to experienced security professionals, providing the deep expertise and skills that larger organizations typically have in-house.
If 2026 is like any of the previous years of this decade, it is going to be full of challenges, and no one knows how to navigate them better than your business. Why not offload mundane tasks such as patching and system updates to an external team that can automate it to ensure that vulnerabilities are closed quickly and reliably. By shifting these distractions to a managed services provider that understands your environment and operates transparently, your internal team can refocus on growing your business. Of course, an MSP today should offer more than just task automation and ticket resolution. They need strategic MSP partners who drive proactive solutions, anticipate risks, and align technology investments with real business outcomes.
At IntegraONE, we're committed to helping your SMB start 2026 on solid footing. Check out part one of our series, which covers other steps to ensure a safe and secure 2026 for your SMB.